Free Republic

Audio Podcast: EconTalk Interview with UCLA professor of economics, Lee Ohanian from August 2012 "Lee Ohanian of UCLA talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the recession, the recovery, and the state of labor market. Ohanian describes the unusual aspects of this recession and recovery in the United States as shown by the labor market and the unusual performance of hours worked, productivity, and wages. He also discusses the behavior of business investment and speculates as to why this recession and the recovery has been so different in the United States. The conversation closes with a discussion of the role...

This week on Uncommon Knowledge, US senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) discusses his first two months in office and his vision for the Republican Party. (36:13) “I think the biggest divide is not even a divide between Republicans and Democrats; it's a divide between the people. And [between] the entrenched elites in Washington that are growing their own power. And I think there is an incredible desire to get back to commonsense conservative principles.”

Why has the current recovery from the Great Recession been so mediocre? Ed Leamer of UCLA points out that the last three recessions have all had mediocre recoveries of both output and employment. His explanation is that changes in the manufacturing sector have changed the pattern of layoffs, recalls and hiring during recessions and recoveries. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the forces driving the changes in the labor market and the implications for manufacturing.

Talking about the election to many friends and family who had been rooting for Romney , I found their emotions ran the entire gamut from despair to despondency. Everybody was way down. I found myself unexpectedly blue as well. Our emotions were not so much caused by the Romney defeat. Few of us were particularly excited about him. It was the Obama victory that concerned us . . . . . . Yes, a little over half of the people who voted, a little over 60 million people, thought Obama deserved a second term. But about 59 million (the combined...

(Reuters) - Families and victims of a mass shooting in 2009 at the Fort Hood military base in Texas filed a wrongful death suit on Monday against the U.S. government, the accused gunman and the estate of an alleged al Qaeda leader.

1. Two-thirds of American employees’ wages will decrease as employers deal with increasing costs. 2. Loss of existing insurance coverage. 3. Premiums in the individual market are set to skyrocket. 4. Full-time workers turned part-time to avoid the employer mandate. 5. The heavy burden of 18 taxes and penalties.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia visits Uncommon Knowledge for a wide ranging interview including the living constitution, Roe v. Wade, Congress' relationship to the court, and to discuss his new book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

Scott Atlas, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of In Excellent Health, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the U.S. health care system. Atlas argues that the U.S. health care system is top-notch relative to other countries and that data that show otherwise rely on including factors unrelated to health care or on spurious definitions. For example, life expectancy in the United States is unexceptional. When you take out suicides and fatal car accidents, factors that Atlas argues are unrelated to the health care system, the United States has the longest life expectancy in the world....

"[President Obama] appeared in New Jersey wearing a bomber jacket rather than a suit to demonstrate that when the going gets tough the tough get out a monogrammed Air Force One bomber jacket. He announced that he'd instructed his officials to answer all calls within 15 minutes because in America "we leave nobody behind." By doing all this, the president "shows" he "cares" — which is true in the sense that in Benghazi he was willing to leave the entire consulate staff behind, and nobody had their calls answered within seven hours, because presumably he didn't care. So Brennan, the...

Free To Choose - Original 1980 Series: Volume 1 - The Power of the Market Volume 2 - The Tyranny of Control Volume 3 - Anatomy of Crisis Volume 4 - From Cradle to Grave Volume 5 - Created Equal Volume 6 - What's Wrong with our Schools Volume 7 - Who Protects the Consumer? Volume 8 - Who Protects the Worker Volume 9 - How to Cure Inflation Volume 10 - How to Stay Free Free To Choose - Updated 1990 Series Volume 1 - The Power of the Market Volume 2 - The Tyranny of Control Volume 3...

Milton Friedman speaks to physicians at the Mayo Clinic about healthcare and the trend toward socialized medicine (1978) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJgbc8ojYUg&feature=player_embedded part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf3k9Gv8Ycg&feature=player_embedded part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmozX7aqwkM&feature=player_embedded part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ETGZXYVfY&feature=player_embedded part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epyljLcm5vs&feature=player_embedded part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcYXrsCSba4&feature=player_embedded part 6

The popular narrative about this summer’s struggle to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling centers on the word “default.” If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, we are told, the U.S. government will be forced to default on many of its financial obligations, reducing Uncle Sam’s creditworthiness and decreasing our government’s ability to effectively carry out its duties. Sounds scary. But a failure to raise the debt ceiling wouldn’t necessarily cause a default or any reduction of creditworthiness. Indeed, keeping the debt ceiling fixed might actually increase investors’ willingness to buy U.S. bonds.

We now know how many people have the problem most often cited as the reason for last years’ health overhaul legislation. Answer: 8,000 No, that’s not a misprint. Out of 310 million Americans, only 8,000 people have the problem given as the principal reason for spending almost $1 trillion, creating more than 150 regulatory agencies and causing perhaps 150 million or more people to change the coverage they now have.

32-minute video clip of economist Robert P. Murphy explaining "open market operations" of the Federal Reserve, as well as the unprecedented expansion of Fed power now exercised by its chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Video of the combined Free Republic convention and National Tea Party demonstration that took place in Washington, D.C. 2009 over the September 11 weekend. Included are: the demonstration at Walter Reed Medical Center, the march on Capitol Hill, and excerpts of entertainers and speakers from FR's convention banquet on the final evening.

The link below is to a single, 2-hour video clip, downloadable for the next 30 days, of Yuri Bezmenov's lecture on subversion and psychological warfare.

Yuri Bezmenov lectures an audience in Los Angeles in the early 1980s about Soviet techniques of psychological warfare.

The succeeding chapters of this book explain in detail the ideology and methods behind the present inflation and aggrandizement of State power, the conditions to which it has led and, finally, the solutions we must apply if this sinister threat—not only to the economic future of the American people but to the future of civilization itself—is to be averted.

Brilliant send-up of "Earth Day" and those who pray at the altar of radical environmentalism.

British Organisation of Occupational Martyrs Go On Strike! Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement. The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of...